net pots
- Homemade hydroponics system
In Build your own Hydroponic System Part 1 and 2
I showed you how to build the Hydroponic system. Now I will attempt to show you how to modify the plastic cups so you can use them in your system. First let me say that almost any kind of container will work, you can use any size that will fit your application. Most Hydroponic gardeners prefer to use Net pots. I agree that net pots are nice little baskets and are well suited for this type of application but in my case I tried to keep cost down and use only readily available materials.
Plastic Cups
We will be using our 18 oz plastic cups for this part of our project. The cups in the picture on the right are perfect for what I needed for my Hydroponic system. You want to use a cup that is sturdy, with a lip on top and one that is tapered from the top down. In other words the top should be larger than the bottom. When you shop for your cups try to squeeze them and make sure they are firm, you do not want a cup that collapses easy when you squeeze it.
Most of the better quality plastic cups fit this criteria.
cup and soldering iron
For this next step you will need an old soldering iron and of course some cups.
Let me warn you first. We will be melting holes into the cups with the soldering iron and this will get a little smokey. Plastic fumes are toxic so you do not want to inhale these fumes. You may want to do this outdoors as the fumes will disipate faster. There are other ways to put the holes in the cups but I found using the soldering iron was the easiest.
- Burning hole in cup
Once your iron is good and hot you simply touch the cup as you can see in the picture on the right and apply very light pressure. This will burn a perfect little hole in your cup. Now you need to repeat this many times until you have enough holes in your cup.
Holes in bottom of cup
Holes in side of cup
Once you have poked holes in the bottom of your cup you need to poke holes in the side of your cup. I only poked holes about half way up the side of the cup, this seems to work well.
More cups with holes
You need to repeat this for as many cups as you have holes in your Hydroponic System.
When you are done with all your cups, your project is pretty much complete and you can start getting ready to find a spot where you will do your Hydroponic gardening. I chose to set up my garden outdoors but if you want you can use this system indoors as well, this of course will be an added expense as you will have to provide lighting for your plants.
Fill cups with pea gravel
pea gravel
The last step is to fill your cups about 3/4 full with your growing medium, in my case this would be pea gravel. There are many growing aggregates that are available for Hydroponic gardening some are better than others but in my case I am getting good results with just plain ordinary pea gravel.
In my next post Build your own Hydroponic System Part 4 I will attempt to show you how to make your nutrient solution.
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2 Inch Round Orchid/Hydroponics Slotted Mesh Net Pot - 50 PackPack of 50 Flexible Net Cups and Net Pots
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Durable, UV-resistant plastic
Allows quick drying of media for orchid and hydroponic application
